Quick answer: Three studies published in mid-October 2026 found that AI assistants still send only a small share of the traffic and conversions that Google organic search delivers. Marie Haynes found ChatGPT sessions equal to just 0.62% of Google organic volume across 100 sites. SEO Works found organic search sent 39 times more traffic than AI assistants. Kevin Indig found no reliable link between AI visibility and increases in branded or direct traffic.
The three studies
1. Marie Haynes: “GEO is a distraction”
- 12 months of GA4 data from 100 websites and more than 145 million sessions.
- ChatGPT sessions equalled 0.62% of Google organic sessions.
- ChatGPT visitors converted at 13.8% versus 3.02% for Google organic, more than 4.5 times higher.
- Google still drove 96.5% of total conversions across the channels analyzed, and 27 times more conversions than all LLMs combined.
2. SEO Works: How much traffic do AI assistants send?
- Organic search delivered 39 times more traffic than AI assistants.
- For every 100 organic conversions, AI referrals delivered 3.2.
- AI referral traffic converted at 0.67 times the rate of paid search and 2.48 times the rate of direct traffic.
3. Kevin Indig: Does AI drive more direct traffic?
- Analysis of 12 sites across different sectors and sizes.
- No detectable AI-driven direct traffic to long-tail pages.
- No reliable relationship between AI visibility and branded search or direct traffic, though brands with strong AI growth may see an effect.
Why it matters
Many brands are pouring budget into GEO and AI visibility tools. These studies suggest Google organic remains the dominant source of traffic and revenue for most sites. At the same time, AI referrals can convert well, and AI visibility may build brand awareness that is hard to measure. The debate has split the industry, with some arguing GEO is a distraction and others calling AI search a branding channel.
Search Engine Land separately reported that ChatGPT sends less than 1% of Google’s traffic, which lines up with these findings.
What to do now
- Measure AI referral traffic and conversions in GA4 with a dedicated channel group before shifting budget.
- Keep core SEO, which still drives the bulk of results, as the priority.
- Treat AI visibility work as complementary: the same clear, authoritative content tends to help both.
FAQ
Should I stop investing in GEO?
Not necessarily. The data argues for proportion: keep Google organic as the main focus and invest in AI visibility in line with what you can measure.
Does AI traffic convert better?
In Marie Haynes’s data, ChatGPT visitors converted at a much higher rate than Google organic, but the volume was far smaller.
